Of Rainbows, Wheatfields, and a Tin Man
by Robyn Maddison
Summary: DG had a drunken epiphany of sorts . Which led to something else. Which led to her fleeing the O.Z. Which led to her being followed. By Cain. Who had shared in her sort-of-epiphany. DG/Cain with angst, and maybe a baby.
1. Chapter 1

**Of Rainbows, Wheatfields and a Tin Man**

**Chapter 1: In Which There is Fleeing and Necessary Plot Set-up**

**Disclaimer**: If you recognize it, it's not mine.

**Summary**: DG had a drunken epiphany (of sorts). Which led to something else. Which led to her fleeing the O.Z. Which led to her being followed. By Cain. Who had shared in her sort-of-epiphany. DG/Cain with angst, and maybe a baby.

**Author's Notes**: _This will be the only note of this kind!_ I dabble in many fandoms, but stick mostly to the Labyrinth. So I was surprised when I found myself starting not one but two multi-chapter Tin Man fanfics in the space of two weeks, and spitting out several oneshots. Those oneshots fit into this story. I've read a lot of Tin Man fanfics now (and will be reviewing them, don't worry, I have a list of stories to hit up now that I've caved and signed in and started writing stuff again). So it's hard to say where any particular inspiration for this came from since there are so many stories out there that I think this echoes. I don't think it's terribly original, but I like it just the same. I think I've had a story like this in my head for a while, and DG and Cain just fit it. My copy of Tin Man is arriving in the mail hopefully this week, so any continuity errors, I will maybe go back and correct once I re-watch it. No promises though, I'm lazy.

This first chapter is maybe one seventh of what I have written, but it's nearing completion! Maybe 5 more pages to write, which fills me with joy! Also, I'm Canadian, and make no claim to knowing anything about Kansas but what I have picked up from TV/Movies/Internet and my own forays into research. This will make more sense later on. As well, I spell Canadian.

I apologize for the length of this Author's Note, but as I am generally not a fan of Author's notes in general, please expect this to be the only one of its kind (explanatory) and length (uh, long). Without anymore blathering, the fic.

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_But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads?_ -- Albert Camus

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It was her first instinct. Too many years of Monty Python and the Holy Grail had imbued her with an appropriate sense of self preservation. Run away was the motto. DG, at this point, considered Sir Robin a like-minded individual.

Recently she'd been practicing the art of staying, but that hadn't always been how the dark haired princess had operated. Before she'd been unintentionally thrown into the middle of a war and saving a kingdom and being all heroic, she'd been in the process of running away. Running away to Australia because it was easier to flee than to try and make her life as it had been into something she wanted.

In retrospect it was easy to see how she'd been running to the O.Z. all along and just hadn't known it.

But this, now _this,_ was an entirely different matter.

There was no way she could stay and do this. Babies were a big deal. Royal babies needed parents and less scandal than her baby would have. Babies needed not to have been drunken mistakes. Babies needed parents who could at least acknowledge and remember how said baby got there.

No, this was beyond staying. She wasn't ready. DG was very good at realizing certain truths about herself. This is why she found it very easy to acknowledge that she was running away to avoid a sticky situation. Single mothers were more acceptable on the Otherside.

DG looked the part of a runaway princess, a dark cloak wrapped around her body, hood covering her dark hair and pale face. Even the weather had obliged by giving her a dark and rainy, sufficiently stormy night.

Okay, maybe she had waited for such a night so that travel storm she'd created would be effectively hidden. Her family, and yes probably Cain, would look elsewhere before realizing she'd slipped through to the Otherside.

Magical Education had not been one of the areas that DG had obviously excelled at. But when the need arose she'd focused her considerable energies on learning travel storms, sneakily. Her magic otherwise was limited to small household stuff, fancy parlour tricks as she called them. Spinning dolls indeed!

Hopefully they would not figure out she'd created a Travel Storm until she'd had enough time to disappear into the woodwork of the vast spread of humanity across America. Okay, maybe just somewhere in Kansas.

DG was pretty sure she wasn't leaving the O.Z. behind forever and she didn't want to travel too far on the Otherside… just in case.

The travel storm swirled madly in front of her, blowing her hair and cloak about wildly, whipping wet strands into her face. With a grimace aimed at the rather drastic way of travel, she stepped into the storm, leaving the O.Z. behind.

DG found herself wearing clothes that were better suited to a cool fall day now that she was in the middle of a Kansas field, in summer. She pushed wet hair back out of her face and lifted her face to the bright sun.

"Hmm. Just one sun. How refreshingly normal. Guess weather doesn't translate across the realms. Lucky me…" She grinned to herself before getting her bearings. With any luck she'd managed to aim her travel storm far enough away from her farm that the cyclone would have been brief enough to be missed.

Sure enough, the dilapidated farmhouse was a ten-minute walk away.

The farmhouse was just as it had been left: a mess. The Longcoats who'd forced their way in did not make it easy to scramble up past a splintered cupboard to her own attic. At first glance it seemed as if everything had been torn apart by the Longcoats and the winds of the last travel storm.

DG sighed as she entered the dusty room that had once been her haven. The blue eyed princess frowned as she wondered why the house had been left alone by the community. She'd been gone over a year and a half at least, her Otherside parental units as well. "No one noticed?" She murmured to herself to break the silence that permeated the farmhouse.

After stepping on something that crackled, DG reached one hand down to lift up a yellowed and curling piece of paper with a fond smile. A sketch of Milltown was blurred on the paper and the princess blinked sadly at the reminder of another life. A life before the O.Z. happened, before Princess DG came and took the place of the hands on fix-it girl DG. When all she'd had to worry about was being a good daughter and showing up for work on time. Ish… And paying parking tickets. And getting the hell out of Dodge. Though, not literally, since Dodge City was still a fair distance away.

"To business." She muttered, folding the paper and slipping it into her messenger bag, slung over her shoulders. Her cloak was draped over a railing to dry as she hurriedly puttered about, finding some necessary papers, money and supplies.

With a nostalgic grin DG opened a box that contained her flight information, now expired of course, but possibly still good for credit with the airline. She packed that away in her bag with her wallet, rescued from its position on her dresser.

The lights weren't working, and when she ran the tap to clean her hands and face it sputtered rusty red water before a trickle of clear water came out. The princess wrinkled her nose but washed anyways.

DG added several pairs of jeans and shirts to a duffel. She tied her hair up out of her face, grabbed the now dry cloak, rolled it tight into a ball, and thrust it into the duffel as well.

DG no longer looked like a princess as she picked her way through the overgrown yard to the barn, hoping beyond hope her bike was somehow in running condition. Her hair in a high ponytail, clad in the O.Z.'s answer for jeans in loose cotton pants, a blue long sleeved shirt on, and a duffel and messenger bag were slung over her narrow shoulders. She looked more like the DG of the Otherside than the Ozian princess she was.

If she'd ever thought about it overlong, DG probably would have realized that she just wasn't sure how to be both. But the young woman had other things on her mind. Like her pregnancy, her flight from the O.Z., and her motorcycle.

The barn door creaked as she pulled it open, blinking into the dark room.

"Oh, no..." She breathed out as she saw her bike lying on its side. She shed her bags and rushed over to pull it up. It wouldn't start. DG sighed and wiped her hands on her pants, she probably still had enough time to get it working; there had been nothing wrong with it when it had been put away, and it looked like the fall hadn't damaged it beyond some surface dents.

The mid-afternoon sun was beginning to ease into evening by the time DG had her bike ready to go. The blue-eyed princess pumped a fist in the air in excitement before the reality of her situation crashed down on her again. "Right. Pregnant. Fleeing. Gotta get on that." She shook her head and gathered up her supplies again, situating herself comfortably on her bike.

With a quick backfire of the bike, DG roared off into the summer evening.

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AN: Short, I know, but the story is almost finished. I'm Just editing n' stuff. Review if'n you are so inclined! Flames are ignored. If you have questions, please read my author's note up top before asking something I may have already answered!

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	2. Interlude

**Of Rainbows, Wheat Fields, and a Tin Man**

**Interlude: In Which We Jump Back in Time and See Cain and DG Interact**

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_First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do._ -- Epictetus

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**INTERLUDE**

DG scuffed the pinching shoes off her feet, and curled one reddened foot up through the layers of skirt. She leaned in to inspect the damage as light echoed out through the open French doors onto her balcony.

So intent on her blisters was the princess, that she didn't see Cain as he strode through the doors. Keenly he glanced around the broad patio leading down into gardens, the paths lit gentle strings of literal fairy lights. The Tin Man turned to his left, easily espying the deep blue of the princess' dress peeking out from beside some sheltering bushes.

Cain grinned at the sight of her. Sitting on the ground in her fine dress, shoes off and one foot curled around to her face, brows furrowed in concentration.

"And here's the Princess, picture of grace and decorum, that I'm familiar with." He eased down beside her, smiling lightly when she looked up. Her surprise turned to ease and she smacked him with a light touch, putting her foot down and curling them under her billowing skirts once more.

"Don't startle me like that Cain!" She reprimanded him.

"Maybe you shouldn't sit out here where just anybody can sneak up on you." He said jokingly back, half serious though he knew the grounds were entirely secure.

DG rolled her eyes. "As if. Anyone who's out here, if they aren't _looking_ for me, won't see me." She waved with one hand and the figures of couples making their way into the sheltering gardens. "All those people escaped to find some hidden romantic nook to make out in. They've other things on their minds than an runaway princess."

"Make out?" Cain questioned her turn of phrase.

DG laughed, and only blushed a little. "Yeah, you know, tonsil hockey? Hanky panky? A little gentle groping?" She grinned as Cain got it, the tips of his ears going pink. Though DG was smugly sure that his cheeks were a delicate shake of red as well.

Cain just shook his head. "DG, the things you say."

"I know, I know." She waved a hand. "But it's not as if I go around greeting diplomats and royalty with these words. It's just, it's _you_." Briefly she frowned as she considered what that meant. "You know what I mean. You knew me before I was all princessy like."

Cain just laughed quietly. "So aside from spying on these ball-escapees 'making out' why are you hiding out here?"

DG poked at one of her shoes with a foot. "You ever tried dancing in these things before? They hurt. And I'm no good at dancing. Add silly shoes and my night equals misery."

Cain picked up one of the delicate and high slippers. "I can see how these might not be sensible."

DG nodded. "Exactly."

"Course, I didn't know that something like uncomfortable shoes was all it took to stop you. I'm awfully glad the Witch didn't find that out. 'Specially if you've read your history books about the O.Z." Cain goaded her.

DG sighed. "Alright, shoes plus… other stuff." She waved her hand expansively. "I just, they all want Princess DG. And I'm tired of being her, just for tonight."

Cain nodded. "I kinda figured."

DG scowled half-heartedly at him. "So what, you came out here just to make me admit it?" At Cain's smug look she hit him again. "Jerk."

"Well, that and your mother was wondering where you'd gotten to. I figured I'd round you up before an alarm was raised." Cain shrugged.

DG looked back at the light and noise pouring out from the doors with a forlorn look. "Guess I'd better go back in then, huh."

"Might not be a bad idea."

DG sighed dramatically and pulled herself up easily, shaking out her long skirts and brushing dust off. Cain stood too. "Can you tell I've been sitting on the ground?" She queried as she spun for him, asking him to examine if there was dust on the backside of her dress.

The Tin Man, caught off guard by the somehow intimate question, just admired the woman in front of him before responding. "Nope fine. Ready to go."

"Good. I'll just take those and I'll be good to go." DG wrinkled her nose as she reached for the shoes that Cain had picked up.

"Tell you what," Cain held the shoes out reach of the shorter princess. "How about we leave these out here, and you practice just being you. A princess who really doesn't like uncomfortable shoes? I'll dance with you and I promise I won't step on those hurting toes."

DG beamed at him.

Cain quickly tucked the pretty, painful shoes into the pots the bushes were planted in, before bowing easily for the Princess to lead the way, bare toes peaking out from her midnight blue skirts.

**END INTERLUDE**

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AN: I know it's short, but there's certain spots that are appropriate for chapter breaks. This is one of 'em. Stay tuned! Please see chapter 1 for my big long introduction to the story plus disclaimer. Feel free to review if you have any more questions! Thanks to everyone who's already reviewed, you keep this going!


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